


Your Fine Spider Web

by FyrMaiden



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, also a 14 year old jerks off, canon typical homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:14:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyrMaiden/pseuds/FyrMaiden
Summary: Coming out happens in stages, in phases. Sometimes it’s a public declaration. Sometimes, it just can’t be. Sometimes, one person knowing can be enough.





	Your Fine Spider Web

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IcebirdsMateForLife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcebirdsMateForLife/gifts).



> This is not the story I was aiming to tell. That story was a vast rambling notion with a lot more religion and symbolism involving the church. But coming out of a 2 year bout of writer’s block, just finishing this feels like an achievement. It’s not the story I wanted to tell, but it’s close enough and I’m happy it’s done.
> 
> This is for IceBirdsMateForLife, for listening to me whine for approximately a year and a half.

> _You left when I told you I was curious_
> 
> _I never said that I was brave_

_Forgive me Father..._

Sidney has his first wet dream about a boy when he’s 14. It’s not about anyone he can name. It’s not about anyone famous. It’s not even specifically about hockey, except in the vaguest sense that he’s still a hockey player in it. The boys in the room are talking about girls now, more seriously than they have before. The boys he’s in the room with are often older than he is anyway, but it’s the first time _he’s_ heard a lot of the individual words. He listens quietly and ingests them, and as the weeks of the season build one on one into Christmas, he starts to imagine those things being done to him. He imagines lips around him, hands. He imagines the weight of someone above him and the heat of someone beneath him, and he feels the tingle of it in his spine and heavy in his balls, and he jerks off in the shower and blames the flush on the heat of the water. He imagines sex a lot.

Except Sidney doesn’t imagine it’s a girl. Or he doesn’t often. He has tried imagined girls, and he’s even got off sometimes. Somehow, though, occasionally that morphs into thinking about his baby sister someday being one of the girls these guys talk about like this, and then nothing is happening. He rolls onto his side and tries to imagine anything but sex. 

But he’s 14 and his hormones are in constant flux and he wakes up with his hands in his shorts and the vaguest notion of rough stubble against his skin, against his lips, and he grunts low and desperate as rough fingers take hold of him and crowd him back against the wall. In his dream, it smells like sweat, like too many teenage boys in one room, naked and full of shit, but it feels good. It feels _so_ good. He comes in his shorts with a cut off little noise that he hopes doesn’t carry past the edges of his bed, and then he rolls over and falls asleep.

In the morning, he throws his shorts in the hamper and himself in the shower, and he doesn’t offer a prayer for forgiveness. He asks instead to understand, and he asks for acceptance, and he asks that this not affect his ambitions. He doesn’t confess, because he’s a little scared more than anything, but he does sit a little longer in pews when he’s next there. His mom tells him God is forgiving, and he doesn’t know if she knows or if she suspects but he lets her warmth in all the same. He knows in his heart that he hasn’t done anything wrong. He crosses himself and hopes she’s right. 

It doesn’t happen again, and he doesn’t think about it again for years. He can’t. At 17, he’s drafted into the NHL, and there’s no room for _that_ there. He’s small and he’s light and under a microscope, no matter how hard they try to make room for him to be just 18. Not quite straight doesn’t factor in any way into his life. Less because he doesn’t want it to and more because it can’t. He’ll learn to be okay with that.

 

_...For I have sinned_

Sidney is in the room when the Penguins select Evgeni Malkin second overall in 2004. Evgeni is Russian, and all awkward smile and fluffy hair, in a suit that was clearly bought for the occasion and doesn’t fit. Sid has a microphone and a job and a sense of earnest self-importance. He was there, but he doesn’t remember much about it. 

His first proper introduction to him is in 2006. Evgeni - “Zhenya,” he says, but he’s tired and his accent is thick and Sid _tries,_ which his mom taught him goes a long way, and which is worth it for the way Evgeni’s mouth turns up in a smile, even if his round Maritime vowels can’t quite parse ‘Zh’ as a sound and it’s more of a ‘J’ noise - arrives from LA straight to Mario Lemieux’s, where Sid is living. He comes down to meet him, and all he remembers is how tired he looked. He doesn’t remember him from World Juniors, though he thinks maybe he should, and he blushes bright red when Evgeni eventually manages to communicate to him, through Gonch, his host, former teammate, and friend, that he _does_ know who Sid is.

He’s followed Sid’s career, it turns out. 

Sid hasn’t thought about a boy _like that_ since he was 14. He’s not immediately struck by Evgeni, not really. Not _like that_. But he’s flattered, and he feels the attention coil inside of him. In the shower, he runs his hands over himself. Lying in bed, he allows his hand to drift to his dick. With his eyes closed and a language he doesn’t understand and honestly can’t even mentally recreate running through his head, Sid jerks himself off. It’s not a crush, it’s just been a long time. This time when he’s done, he strips himself naked and holds his necklace pendant in his hand as sweat cools tacky on his skin. 

Once again, he offers a prayer before he falls asleep, still not for forgiveness because he doesn’t believe he needs to be forgiven. He doesn’t pray to be cured, or fixed. He prays quietly for his team to understand. Because one day, when this comes out, _if_ this comes out, he hopes he has people who will have his back.

And he prays that Evgeni never finds out.

 

1\. 

Sid slides quietly into the confessional and bows his head. He used to talk to his Grandma about the things he felt and for whom when she was with them, so it’s been a little more than too long since he found himself in the quiet embrace of the church. He breathes in and out and lets the weight of the booth settle around him. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, cracked and heavy. 

He knows the priest here, has spoken to him several times now, but never like this. Here, that easy ‘Father’ feels less simple than it does beneath the vaulted ceiling of the church itself. When he spent an afternoon in the quiet recess of a pew, hat on and head down, he thought perhaps he was unobtrusive enough to not attract attention. If anyone recognised him, they blessedly left him to himself for once. He felt himself physically retreat into himself, shoulders drawing in and knees drawing together, as someone finally sat beside him.

“You’ve been sat here a long time,” a warm voice said, soft and welcoming and younger than he’d expected. Sid nodded and chewed his lip, fingered the pendant beneath his t-shirt, remembering his Grandma’s calm understanding when he told her, just to tell someone, to speak his truth out loud, before he’d implored her not to tell his mom or his dad. They were worried enough, without this as well. 

“I can go,” he said, and put his hand down ready to push himself up. He turned his head to meet the priest’s steady gaze. His hair was dark, greying slightly at the temples, but he was younger than Sid remembered any priest from his childhood being. Perhaps ‘old’ seemed further away as his own digits rolled slowly upwards as well. “I’m sorry, Father. I- I didn’t mean to sit so long.” 

“There’s not a time limit,” the priest said. He didn’t reach to touch him, didn’t seem to move at all really, until Sid exhaled and collapsed slightly, suddenly small and young and incredibly far from home, for all that Pittsburgh had been home for half a decade. Tears half formed and he swiped at them, and let out a shaky laugh. “When you’re ready, you can tell me whatever it is that’s troubling you enough to bring you in here.” 

Sid was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on the crucifix above the altar. He tried to assemble his thoughts into some type of order again, but at the end of each track was Geno, smiling and bright and _alive._

“I’m in love with a man,” he said quietly. “And it hurts so much.” 

He glanced sidelong at the priest, trying to get some feel for his reaction. The only expression he could see, though, was sympathy. Not pity, not disgust, not someone ready to forgive him on God’s behalf. Just a man equipped with two ears to listen, exactly as Sid expected in almost all respects. The same clothes, the same calm. He swiped at his eyes again.

“You know me,” he said eventually, not asking but stating, and the priest nodded. Sid managed a small, ragged smile. 

“How long has it been since your last confession,” the priest asked him, and Sid made a face. Too long, and the weight of all those days pressed down along with his feelings for Geno. He shrugged a shoulder.

“A while,” he hazarded, and that earned a chuckle. 

“Come,” the priest said gently, and Sid nodded. 

“I’ll definitely try,” he promised, and he meant it when he said it. But for as often as he’s made it back to pray, to talk, he hasn’t made it back for Confession.

Until today. He slides in and fumbles in his pocket for the Act of Contrition. He got it from Nathalie, who touched his hair with her lips and hugged him the way his mom would have. For all realistic purposes, she’d filed that role willingly when he arrived, 18 and unsettled, had provided him a home and a family as he adapted to the NHL, to saving a franchise and a sport. She hadn’t asked him why, or for details, she’d just written it down from memory and left the folded square of paper under his plate when he came for dinner. When he’s prompted, he mumbles the words, and then unburdens himself. He doesn’t realise how much heaviness he’s carrying with him until he’s talking. 

When he gets to Geno, he stutters to a halt. He doesn’t believe loving Geno is a sin. He believes he was made the way he is. That if feeling this is somehow _wrong_ , then it’s on God, not him. But Geno is straight, and dating a girl back home. Pinning his heart to Geno is hurting him. He moves forward with caution, and receives his penance with peace in his heart for the first time in years.

On the way home, he turns the radio up and doesn’t change the pronouns of the songs he sings along to. He buys a rosary online, and promises himself that he won’t leave it so long next time. He pins the Act of Contrition to his fridge with a magnet, and settles down to read. 

He may be in love with Geno, but loving Geno doesn’t define who he is.

 

_It’s definitely at least part professional curiosity. Zhenya convinces himself of that very early. He plays against Sidney Crosby, and Sidney Crosby stands out. Zhenya needs to know who he is, so he asks. From there, following his statistics is reasonably easy. Players like Sidney Crosby are easy enough to follow._

_More interesting is that he keeps his curiosity almost entirely to himself. That one he doesn’t fully understand. There’s no reason not to tell anyone about it, but he doesn’t anyway. Sharing Sidney feels like a betrayal of trust. Reading his statistics swoops in his gut and tightens his chest. He remembers seeing him play and not being surprised by the numbers because Sidney is amazing. Sidney could change the game. Sidney could probably change the world, he thinks._

_Zhenya has only the most limited concept of ‘gay’, of being attracted to another boy. It’s not a part of his life, except in the ways in which it is hurled around childhood locker rooms as the worst thing in the world it’s possible to be. He’s certain of one thing as regards his interest in Sidney, and it’s that it’s very much not a crush. He’s not_ like that _, because it seems that being_ like that _would be grounds to, at the very best, ensure he can never play hockey again._

_Zhenya would rather die._

_Zhenya has a girlfriend. She’s nice enough. He really likes her. She’s less interesting than a Canadian boy he’s barely met that counts, and whom he could not speak to besides, but she’s fine. She likes hockey and she likes him, and she’s suitably impressed that he’s going to be a professional someday soon, that he’s going to America for the NHL Entry Draft. Her name is Valeria and he’s not devastated when she leaves him for somebody else. He tries to be, but he’s not. He’s mostly just relieved. He can focus on the Entry Draft, on maybe, someday, playing hockey in the NHL._

_Zhenya is drafted second overall, by the Pittsburgh Penguins. He takes his jersey with pride, and smiles as he slips it over his head. All of his hard work, everything he’s aimed for, he’s on the cusp of achieving._

_And then the season is cancelled, and he signs another year in the Superleague, playing for his hometown club, for the club that made him. He plays with Sergei Gonchar, who plays for the Penguins, the team he dreams of joining. He pays attention to the Draft again, and watches Sidney Crosby also pull on a Penguins jersey, and in the darkness of his room, he offers a prayer that he someday get to play_ with _him, and not against him._

_If that would be okay._

 

2.

Sid’s nursing a beer, just the one, and guarding halloumi fries with his life from the thieving hands of his alleged friends. Geno is a terrible dancer, but it doesn’t seem to stop him. He grins huge, and waves back at them exuberantly, and Sid’s heart lurches sideways every time. Sid’s crush is full blown and unstoppable, and he watches him and fingers the neck of his beer bottle.

“You could just just jerk off,” Flower says, and Sid’s brain shudders to a halt.

“What?” he asks, and Flower nods at his hands. Sid looks. The corners of the label are peeled back, and he pushes the bottle away. It’s basically empty anyway.

“You’re two seconds from fellating a Bud Light,” Flower grins, and pokes his tongue into his cheek, mimics a blowjob himself. Sid swallows his tongue and twirls a fry between his fingers. “I mean, it’s not a problem, we figured it out ages ago.” 

“Figured it out,” he echoes vaguely. Followed by an even fainter, “We?” 

“Tanger and I,” Flower says. “It’s just us. We’ve had your back.” 

Sid isn’t hungry anymore, which coincides with Geno’s hand ducking inside the circle of his arms to steal a handful of his cheese. Sid smiles up at him, and Geno’s grin is wide and happy.

“Should dance,” he says, and moves his hips, and Sid feels his ears burning, is almost certain that Flower is staring at the side of his face. 

“I dance about as well as I sing,” he says, and shakes his head. Geno won’t be denied though, and is tugging on Sid’s wrist with greasy fingers. 

“Dance,” he insists. “You dance with me, is okay.” 

It’s the exact opposite of okay, in Sid’s opinion. But he does reach for his beer, draining the last of it, and shuffling out of the booth. Geno shakes his hips again and Sid resolutely stares at his face. But he dances anyway, and it’s actually nice, Geno’s laugh warm on his skin and beer curling loose in his veins. He laughs and he dances and he lets himself forget about the things he can’t have for the short time he has Geno’s undivided attention for. When he looks back at the booth they were all sharing, Flower is gone as well. Sid lets himself go, lets himself imagine he could have this. That this is real. 

But the night winds down, as it has to. Sid is amongst the first wave to leave, citing tiredness and a long travel day ahead of them tomorrow. He’s full of absolute shit and he knows it, but one beer isn’t really enough to numb the edges of self-consciousness entirely. Geno’s hands are huge on his skin, and he can’t have it. He wants it and he can’t have it, and tiredness hits him like a freight train at midnight. 

He heads back to the hotel with Tanger, and Tanger doesn’t judge him when he finds himself standing in the elevator, staring at the ceiling with tears in his eyes.

 

_Sid is, in Geno’s opinion, a rotten liar. He said he was improving, but they let him skate today and now he’s in the medical office with a bucket and a lot of concerned staff. They let him skate, and he’s_ not _improving. Geno feels like he saw him at his absolute worst, in the days and weeks after the concussion was diagnosed. But it’s September again, and Sid still can’t play. He’d think less of himself if he couldn’t admit that he’s terrified. This could be it, and he thinks they’re all thinking it. If Sid can’t shake this, it could be the end of everything. He’ll never be the legend he should have been._

_It’s an untenable thought, and Geno changes into his street clothes with heavy limbs and a heavier heart. If Sid leaves Pittsburgh, if he has to quit, Geno will never get the chance to tell him that he loves him. Not just his hockey, not just him as a hockey player, but_ him _. He loves Sid with everything he has, and it kills him to see him like this._

_He closes his eyes and holds his necklace in his fist and offers a prayer for Sid to be okay. He’s not sure if God is listening, or if God would even try to answer this type of prayer from someone like him, who isn’t even brave enough to say the words out loud. But he thinks them clearly and precisely._

_If Sidney makes it through this, if Sidney comes back this season, he’ll tell him. He’ll admit to him that he loves him. He just needs Sid by his side on this team. As his Captain and his friend, he needs to play with him more than he needs anything else beneath Heaven._

_Geno leaves before Sid reappears, and he wishes he had a good reason to drive straight to his house and wait for him there. He doesn’t, though. He’ll just have to wait for Sid to text him, and in the meantime, he’ll do everything he can to keep Sid’s team functioning, and he’ll pray for a miracle to happen._

 

3.

Sid likes LA. 

No.

Sid _loves_ LA.

In LA, he’s nobody. He’s just another guy with a good body and a mouth to die for. He could be famous, he could be trying to be famous, he could be just another somebody who came here with hopes and is living the best life they can afford. He knows he doesn’t pass for a native Angelino the moment he opens his mouth. But native Angelinos don’t bother him if they recognise him.

Sid absolutely adores LA.

Because in LA, Sid can find a guy, tall and strong, who looks like they could rail him into next week, and he can take him back to a hotel room, and he can blow through ten months of pent up sexual energy in a few hours. 

And then he can go back to his own hotel room, shower it off, and spend at least 48 hours not wishing it were Geno. 

“It’d be easier,” Taylor says, when he calls her, “If you didn’t exclusively choose guys who _look_ like G.”

“I don’t-”

“Yeah, you do. You’re not as subtle as you think you are.”

He can hear the sounds of people in the background, suddenly.

“Where are you?” 

“Starbucks. I’m a sell out.” 

“Cool, I’ll talk to you about this later.” 

He doesn’t call her back. She texts him, and he stares at the message for forty minutes, and then put his phone away. She sends him another. He sends one back just to tell her she can’t use names in public, not about _this_.

**Sure** , she shoots back. **Everyone who overheard one whole sentence thought ‘G’ might be Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins’ star centre.**

She probably, he allows, makes a good point. But it doesn’t abate the paranoia. 

He hits the gym, works until his muscles burn, and then walks back slowly. He buys himself juice, and jerks off, and he spends some time texting his friends, and, eventually, he sleeps. 

In the morning, he calls his sister again. She’s 18 and off to college soon. He’s so proud of her. 

“Sorry,” he says when she answers, and she makes a non-committal noise. He’s silent for a few seconds as well, and then says, “What do you mean, they look like him?” 

“Even when you’re home,” she says. “When you won’t-”

“-Can’t-”

“Do anything about it. Always tall, dark hair, expressive faces you probably wouldn’t immediately call handsome.” 

Sid feels called out. He rubs his hand around the back of his neck and folds his legs up on the bed beneath him. He’ll run through a few yoga poses when she’s gone, he thinks. Stretch his spine and clear his head. He could go for a run. He could do anything other than listen to his sister tell him exactly what he already knows. All of his fantasies involve Geno wanting him, so he’ll keep finding versions of Geno that do.

“I just want you to be happy,” Taylor says, and her voice sounds a little sad. He wants to reassure her that he is, but then he thinks about the boyfriends she’s taken home, whom he’s seen in multiple text messages over the years, and he recognises the sourness he feels as jealousy. There’s been no one he could take home. No one he would have been willing to risk it for or with. There hasn’t even been anyone he’s seen more than once. It’s been worth it for the career he’s dreamed about since he was tiny, since he first understood that hockey was more than just a game, that he _could_ make it his life. He’s been happy to sacrifice his love life for professional fulfillment. But time doesn’t stand still, and he’s only getting older. He’s watched his friends marry their girlfriends. He’s seen more and more professional sportsmen come out. He’s seen female professional hockey players come out and keep playing.

The NHL isn’t like that, though. The NHL eschews personality. You play for your club. It’s not about you. Sid understands that intrinsically. However good he is, it’s not about him. He can’t put himself above the organisation, and certainly not for this. 

“I am happy,” he tells her, and he knows it takes a beat too long. 

“You could be,” she agrees, and hangs up before he can say anything else at all.

Beyond the window, LA keeps moving. But inside, in air conditioned solitude, Sidney Crosby’s world begins to tilt.

 

_Zhenya honestly meant to keep his promise. When Sid came back to the team, he meant to tell him that he loves him. But the timing was never right, they were never alone, and then the window closed and it just felt weird to bring it up. But Sid is laughing and explaining something with his hands, and Zhenya can’t say what it is because all he can hear is his own brain reminding him on a loop that he’s in love with him._

_“Are you okay?” Sid asks, when they have a quiet moment alone. Zhenya shakes himself down and nods his head._

_“Think about something,” he says, and Sid nods sceptically. Zhenya tries to smile, but it feels like Sid sees straight through him._

_“If you need to talk,” he offers, and Zhenya shakes his head. What would he say to_ Sid _even if they talked? There’s nothing he can say. How do you tell a man you love him? He doesn’t think it’s as simple as saying the words out loud. He doesn’t even know what the word he really wants is, not how it applies to him. He’s not gay; he’s loved the women he’s dated, nothing about his feelings has ever been faked._

_“How is name for when think you maybe like guys also?” he says, just as Sid is starting to turn away. Sid glances back at him sharply._

_“What have you heard?” he asks, and Zhenya blinks, confused._

_“Nothing,” he says, honestly, and Sid’s eyes narrow very slightly. “I just see on internet, wonder what is mean.”_

_“Bisexual,” Sid says eventually, and Zhenya nods. “It’s one whole letter of the acronym.” Zhenya snorts. He knows_ that _, at least. Sid writes it down for him on his phone, so he can look it up in more detail later. He still seems suspicious, but he doesn’t question him further. Zhenya takes his phone back, and watches Sid as he ambles away. His walk is cute, Zhenya assesses. The shape of his legs - his walk is cute. He looks at the word on his phone again and then up to heaven. Bisexual._

_He thinks maybe he is bisexual._

_Sid must do some thinking overnight, because he turns up at Zhenya’s house the next day armed with his laptop and what appears to be a comprehensive list of resources. Zhenya sits at his kitchen island and stares at Sid and his array of sheets of paper in English_ and _Russian (‘Boy scout,’ he thinks, but he_ loves _him so much)._

_“It’s normal,” Sid says, and Zhenya nods, shooting for casual and not even successfully convincing himself. Sid smiles sadly and knocks their shoulders together. “Does any of this make sense to you?”_

_Zhenya picks up a piece of paper and makes a show out of reading it, and Sid smiles indulgently before he gets up to get them both water from the fridge. It does make sense. It makes so much sense. A lot of what Sid is showing him could be about him. He loves having a word, and hates that he can’t tell himself that he’s making it all up. Sid stands a bottle of water in front of him and hops back up onto his stool._

_“I know this is important to you as well,” he says slowly, cautiously. “And I couldn’t find any Orthodox churches, if you wanted those instead. I tried, but I mean. I don’t even understand your alphabet and all you’ve ever taught me is how to curse.” His laugh is warm and his grin is wonky and Geno wants to kiss him so much. “But look, if you want somewhere to go, there’s a Catholic church. I guess God can still hear you from there?”_

_Zhenya takes the address that Sid offers him, and Sid squeezes his wrist before collecting his laptop and some of his pieces of paper into a heap._

_“Do you want to maybe get dinner?” he asks, and Zhenya feels relief bloom warm in his chest. Either Sid doesn’t know or he doesn’t care, and either way, he’ll take it. Dinner, he agrees, would be great._

_He still goes to the church though, takes a seat in the back row, from where he can make an easy escape if he has to. He holds his necklace in his palm, and mutters a quiet prayer. Sid says his god is loving and forgiving, but Zhenya isn’t so certain. He can only hope his God can hear him, that maybe one religious building can funnel a prayer to the right ears. He holds his medallion to his lips and says another prayer, for guidance and for hope and also for forgiveness. He doesn’t move as people come and go, when the pew he’s sitting on dips and creaks and rights itself. He only keeps his eyes closed and continues the litany he’s known since he was a child. Tears come and go and his cheeks feel hot and then tight, and the answers aren’t forthcoming._

_Maybe, he reasons, there are no easy answers._

_When he drops the necklace back to his chest, he blows out a breath and grabs for his hat from the seat beside him, tugs it back onto his head as he moves back into the aisle, bows to the Crucifix and turns slowly, heading back into the cool Pittsburgh evening._

_Sitting in his car, his headlights illuminating the door of his own carport, Geno calls Sid._

_“Quiet,” he says, when Sid answers, and Sid’s voice snaps to a halt. “Have something I’m need tell for the longest time.”_

_He breathes, and he listens to Sid breathe, and the silence stretches, three seconds, five, fifteen._

_“G?” Sid says eventually, and Zhenya rests his forehead on his hands where the grip his steering wheel._

_“I ask you about word because I think- No, I know. I know I’m love you forever.”_

_Sid doesn’t seem to respond. He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t say Zhenya is confused. He just maintains the silence for a moment longer, and Zhenya listens to him breathe. When he finally breaks, it’s just one word, heartfelt and certain._

_“Fuck,” he breathes, and Zhenya understands._

 

4.

Summer winds down fast. It’s longer than he’d like, and also gone in the blink of an eye. August sees his 28th birthday happen. He spends some of it on the ice, training for the upcoming season. When he’s finished, he cleans up and meets up with Taylor for lunch. She’s sitting on a bench, her hat shielding her eyes, but she’s still squinting as he walks towards her.

“Anyone ever tell you you have the cutest waddle?” she asks, and her wonky grin drags at his own. 

“You never miss an opportunity,” he says, and she pushes herself to her feet to wrap her arms around him. It’s awkward around the venti Starbucks she’s been drinking, but it’s warm all the same. It’s not as if they haven’t seen one another this summer, but he still holds her back. She’s deceptively strong, though he knows she worries that hockey doesn’t love her the way she loves it. It’s got to her a little over the past year, maybe more than she’s let on to any of them. In his heart, he only hopes she’s happy. 

“So,” she says, rocking back on her heels. 

“So,” he replies. He knows he promised he would tell her about everything that’s been happening with Geno. All the details that have had him on the phone with her at midnight. About the day Geno told him maybe he liked guys. About the day Geno told him maybe liked _him_. 

“Sid,” she says, and he presses his lips into a line. 

So he talks. They walk slowly, and he talks. He goes over the years of quietly loving this tall, gangly, glorious dork of a man. He tells her about the loneliness, about accepting his lot when it came to Geno. Knowing it would always be a crush he’d carry with him and that he’d never see it actualised. That he’d find someone eventually, someone who’d be happy to crawl back into the closet for him because that’s going to be his life, and how he’d learn to be happy for Geno with whoever he eventually chose.

“And then he tells me, out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, that he thinks he’s been in love with me since, fuck. Since before the concussion? And I panicked because I didn’t know what else to do, and then when I did speak to him properly, I classily asked him about his girlfriend. How he can be so sure it’s love and not just, I don’t know. Anything but love. And he said he didn’t know what the words were, but he knows it’s real for him. Because did I mention he’s incredible and much braver than I am?” 

He stops walking and grips her arm, making her stop walking. She turn back to stare at him serenely. 

“Tay, help me. I don’t know how to make this make sense.” 

She’s quiet for a moment, and Sid chews his lip. 

“Your whole life is liminal,” Taylor says eventually, staring at him over the rim of her coffee. He’s not entirely sure what she means, but he’s certain she’s not being mean. It must show on his face a little though, because she lowers the cup and offers him a wry smile. “I mean, it’s not really a surprise that you don’t know your truth. You’ve lived most of your days through someone else’s expectations. Your coaches, your colleagues, Dad, the NHL. Of course you don’t know.” Sid can feel the blush rising in his cheeks and Taylor’s smile shifts slowly into a grin as she reaches up to knock his hat back, ruffling his hair. 

“Aww, baby’s 28 and ready to come out,” she says, and he knocks her arm away.

“I’m not coming out,” he says. “I’m just-”

“Questioning if you could. If he’s worth it. It’s cool, I get it. Have you told Mom and Dad?” 

He shakes his head and fingers the pendant around his neck. Taylor is quiet, blessedly, and Sid blows out a slow breath and then draws one in, shakier than he’d like.

“They’d be okay,” she says. Her voice is soft and warm and he loves her deeply and completely. He nods his head. He knows they would. All they’ve ever wanted for him is that he be happy and fulfilled and that he live his own truth. It doesn’t make it easier to shift the decades of changing rooms, the things boys and men have said to him and to each other, out of his memory. He knows his mom would cook him dinner and his dad would joke with him about how they should have known, busting out that anecdote about him wanting to be a hairdresser when he was six, conveniently ignoring the whole phase where he said he’d be a firefighter too. They’d be okay, but hockey. Hockey he’s still less sure of, even as they try to make it easier every year. He’s still a product of it, still exists within it, and will have to for at least another ten years, if time and God are kind. He’s certain of God and he’s certain of his friends and he’s certain of his parents and Taylor, but the one thing in the world that matters almost more to him than breathing?

He’s not sure of that at all.

“Can we swing past a Circle K or something?” Taylor asks, breaking the silence and the growing tension. “I’m out of deodorant.”

He knows she’s offering him an olive branch, and he grins on cue. “So it’s not just the air conditioning in here,” he says, and she laughs, brilliant and easy and so, so familiar. She’s what it would have been like to grow up without all of Canada watching. She’s what college and experimenting at 19 would have been. 

“Don’t cry,” she says, and fishes through her purse for a tissue, shoving it at him when she finds one. “We’ll work it out. You and me versus the world.” 

“Or possibly just the NHL,” he sniffs and laughs and steals her coffee. It’s okay, as overpriced take out coffee goes, but he gave his heart to Tim’s and everything else is a compromise. 

 

_Zhenya feels as if he’s saying goodbye to Russia. He goes to his favourite restaurants and buys himself his favourite meals and each mouthful feels as if it’s the last time he’ll ever taste them. If anyone ever found out, he knows it could be. He flies from Moscow to Sochi, and back, and then from Moscow to Magnitogorsk, and in every place, he imagines being here with Sid. It’s bittersweet and heavy. Russia with Sidney, it’s been a dream for so long. If Sid agrees, Russia with Sidney may become a dream they never realise. Certainly not_ together _together._

_He breaks up with the woman he was sort of seeing. She doesn’t understand, and he feels terrible besides. He’s not technically seeing anyone else, he tells her. It’s the truth, but it still feels like a lie. It’s just that even the possibility, it feels a lot like betrayal to keep stringing her along. He owes her honesty, and what he does is obfuscate. He omits the whole truth. He met someone. They’re special to him, and he’s hoping it could be more. He can’t continue this and hope for more there. He owes it to all of them to tell the truth. She cries, and he tries to console her, and it’s a mess that ends with sex and her leaving with two of his sweaters and a box of things that he’s sure are his but he supposes it doesn’t matter._

_He trains as if his life depends on it. He sees his friends. He goes to Italy, and then comes back, and each and every day he sends at least one message to Sid, something he’s done today, something he saw. Things he would love to share with him. Sid sends one back. Him and Nate, him and Taylor. Scenery, the rep count on his workout. The weight._

_Every day they’re apart, Zhenya falls a little more in love and a piece of him more hopeful that Sid loves him back._

 

5.

Geno texts him from the airport. All the airports he goes through, really. Sid got back into Pittsburgh in late August, but Geno always leaves it until the last minute. He looks alternately tired and grumpy, but he’s coming back and Sid would think less of himself if he couldn’t admit that he was happy about that. He gets a last text from Pittsburgh airport. Geno looks jet lagged as ever, but he’s back in the city and Sid’s mind and body hum in happy unison. It’s well past midnight, and he knows he should be asleep, but he finds the emoji he wants to express that he’s delighted before he plugs his phone in to charge and strips down to his underwear to sleep.

The following day, he gets another text from Geno. He’d figured whatever Geno thought he was feeling would wane over the summer, with distance and time to evaluate his own truth. Apparently that hasn’t been the case, though. Geno texts him to let him know he _has_ thought about him over the summer. He had a long conversation with his girlfriend, who didn’t really _understand_ but had at least been thankful that they’d had their conversations before she made the decision to cross an ocean for him. Essentially, though, what Geno seems to be largely implying is that he is single and still very much in love with Sid.

Sid does the only logical thing he can think of.

He panics. 

He’s been in love with a man he can’t have for so long now, and the pining is almost like a friend. He turns his phone off and spends the whole morning firing pucks as hard as he could down the alley in his basement, and when his shoulders finally start to burn, he gives up and plays video games in the dark instead. Finally, Flower drives to his house with reinforcements in the shape of Tanger and hangs on his doorbell until Sid grudgingly lets them in. 

“Geno thinks he’s done something wrong,” Flower says conversationally and in greeting. Sid stares a spot just past his shoulder, through an open doorway. A perfect thousand yard stare, his mom would tell him, but only passable avoidance. 

“He hasn’t,” he says, because it’s true. _Geno_ hasn’t done anything wrong at all. Sid just can’t accept that what Geno’s feeling is really real. He can’t risk taking this thing that’s being offered, and in six months or six days having Geno discover the hard way that kissing him actually isn’t what he’s wanted all this time either. He presses his fingers to his necklace and closes his eyes, bowing his head. Flower and Tanger are silent as he whispers a prayer, to God and to his grandmother. They haven’t left when he looks up again though. Flower tilts his head, but it’s Tanger who speaks.

“You can’t avoid him forever,” he says, and Sid buries his face in his hands. He’s never run from a situation in his life, but teetering on the edge of having it all also scares him more than anything else he’s ever faced, including the prospect of losing hockey altogether. 

“Maybe they can trade me and I’ll go to Florida.” 

“Vegas is likely coming up,” Tanger says, and then grunts. Sid doesn’t see why, but knowing how the two of them are, he assumes Flower kicked him.

“Bad ice in the sun belt,” Flower says and Sid rubs his eyes and laughs. It feels honest, and soon bursts into his familiar honk. It’s not that funny, but laughing feels good. Removing his head from his hands, he looks up at both of them.

“I’m scared,” he says, and Flower reaches out to grip his hand tightly. 

“I think that’s normal,” Tanger says, and pushes his chair back to make three coffees, the little machine whirring as it kicks into life. “I was scared when I asked Cath if she’d date me.” 

Sid nods and turns his hand over to grip Flower’s. He breathes in and out and in again, and Tanger plants a coffee mug in front of him. 

“Text him back,” he says. “We’ll stay and help you make dinner.” He pauses thoughtfully. “We’ll stay and help you eat it too, if you want.” 

Sid snorts another laugh and nods his head. Patting his pockets down, he frowns. “I think I put my phone is in the junk drawer,” he says, pointing at the drawer directly behind Tanger, who dutifully checks. It is there. The screen is beautifully dark. Sid puts it on the table in front of him and then can’t make his arms move to switch it on. Tanger takes it away again to do it for him, and Sid _knows_ the look on his face is judgement. When it finally lights up with his lock screen, Tanger unlocks it. Sid makes an affronted noise. 

“You’re very obvious,” Tanger says, and Sid holds out his hand, wiggling his fingers when Tanger seems disinclined to return it.

“You’re not reading my messages,” he says, and Tanger looks contemplative until Flower takes it from his hands and gives it back to Sid. Sid still sits with it in his hands for another solid minute. 

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

He shifts the phone in his grip and turns it back on again, thumbs to his messages and tries not to choke on his own breath. The little red message icon has given up trying to remind him he has messages outstanding. His email inbox isn’t much better. Finding Geno isn’t difficult though. He’s not the last person to message him - that’s his sister, and even the preview is an eye roll so he ignores it - but he’s amongst the last ten. He clicks on his name and scrolls back through the messages he hasn’t read. He can feel himself drawing in on himself, his toes curling in his socks like monkey paws. Geno never changes. He’s still a bright shining light, a little goofy but his heart as a big as a star and twice as warm. 

“That face,” Tanger whispers - or stage whispers, really - to Flower. “That’s how you smiled when Estelle was born.” 

Sid turns away from both of them and takes himself, his coffee, and his phone into a different room, so they can’t distract him as he tries to fathom out a reply. Because Geno’s messages are honest, and imploring, and Sid owes him a chance, maybe, or at least a reply. He ignores the sounds of his friends possibly destroying his kitchen or at least the system he has going in his fridge as he settles himself cross-legged on his couch.

Geno says he’s scared, and Sid understands that. He’s scared too. Geno says he doesn’t know if it could work. He can’t come out. He doesn’t want to. Sid’s fine with that, if he can tell his mom and dad at least. He doesn’t want to invite the world into his life. The world has enough access to him as it is. At home, Geno’s messages continue, it wouldn’t be easy if people knew. If it were more than just a rumour. He can deflect being single, but his church, his life. The people he loves. He can’t come out himself, not if he wants to play for Russia again. Sid shifts his legs and hugs one of his knees instead, reads Geno’s messages again. His intent is clear through the four hours of random messages. He wants to try.

Sid takes a breath and sends a message back.

**Okay.**

 

**__** _Zhenya tells his mother. More accurately, his mother pries it out of him._

_“You’ve been so distant,” she complains, her voice slightly out of sync with her mouth on his laptop screen. He knew calling when she asked him to would turn out to be a mistake. He turns his phone over in his hands, and unlocks it just to read that one word from Sid again._

Okay.

_He looks back at the screen._

_“I found someone,” he says. His mom looks excited, and he feels nausea knot in his gut._

_“I’m sending you a picture,” he tells her, and she nods her head, her smile still happy for him and he hates that that’s going to change when she sees his message. He attaches the screenshot to a text and adds her as a contact. His own face in the corner of his screen looks ghostly to his own eyes._

_Off screen, he hears her phone beep. She disappears for a moment to fetch it, and when she comes back, she has the message open._

_“I don’t understand,” she says, which is maybe the best reaction he could have hoped for, really. He takes a deep breath. “Sidney?” she says. “Your Sidney?” He only knows one, so he doesn’t bother answering that. He can only dream that he could be_ his _Sidney._

_“I hope,” he says softly, and scrubs his hand over his face. She goes quiet again and reads the few texts he sent Sid before he got that one word back._

_“You love him?” she asks, and Zhenya can’t even meet her eyes._

_“I do,” he whispers._

_“Zhenya,” she says, quiet and serious, and he risks looking up. She doesn’t seem sad, or disappointed, only concerned for him. As if he hasn’t considered the repercussions. As if he doesn’t know that Sid’s one word has the potential to ruin everything. As if he doesn’t know that he could never bring Sid home as his boyfriend._

_Tears he hasn’t let himself cry spill over, and he lets them fall. It’s just his mom. He can cry about this in front of his mom. About the weight of it, the meaning. The potential, even. His mom makes soothing noises and he scrubs his hands over his face and up into his hair and finally looks directly at her. There are tears on her face as well, and he’s sorry. He’s so sorry._

_“You should try,” she tells him softly. “If anyone will understand…” Her voice trails off, and Zhenya nods. He unlocks his phone so he can stare at Sid’s ‘okay’ himself. He should try. He can probably do that._

 

6.

First dates are awkward, Sid decides. He’s never really _dated_ either. He’s hooked up, and then not often, but dating is a whole different ball game when you have to carefully plan each trip beyond your own gates. But this date is with _Geno_ , who is wearing a truly appalling t-shirt and jeans that are equally a sin against God but in a whole different way, and at least Sid is certain they both know they have everything to play for and everything to lose. 

They don’t go out. Geno comes to him with a bag full of food from Sid’s favourite restaurant. Sid almost tells him he loves him there and then. He’s never felt more known, or more understood. 

He manages to hold off until they’ve eaten, though, and they’re collapsed together on his couch, thigh pressed hard against thigh.

“Think about kiss you all summer,” Geno says, and Sid risks turning his head to look at him. Geno’s warm brown eyes are boring into him. Sid blinks and looks away again. He gets it, though. He’s thought about kissing Geno many times. He’s had men between his thighs and imagined how it would really feel to have Geno there, pressing into him, holding him open, taking and taking until he has nothing left to give. He’s imagined nights like this, nights that end with Geno’s palm on his cheek and his lips rough against Sid’s. 

“Yeah,” he says, his mouth dry and his lips numb. “Me too.”

“Think about kiss you now,” Geno says, still so much braver than he is. Sid blinks furiously, at the wall first and then at the large hand that rests on his thigh. He looks at Geno again, and Geno’s still watching him. 

“You’ve never even kissed a man,” Sid says, and his fingers curl into his palms. He wants to touch Geno’s face, his hair. He wants to lean in until they’re sharing the same damp breath on repeat. Until they’re sharing the same dead air. He blinks again. Geno doesn’t. 

“When you think I have time?” he asks indignantly and Sid smiles. It’s just Geno. Geno doesn’t change, and Sid feels like this is a moment. If he doesn’t try now, it’ll slip away and they’ll have missed it. He moves his hand slowly to touch Geno’s shoulder, his neck, his hair with fingers he wishes he could will to stop trembling. Geno’s not a nervous dog. He’s not going to bite or shy away. 

“I guess you’ve got time now,” Sid whispers, and leans in slowly. Geno’s body shifts, turning to face him, and his hand moved to cup Sid’s face. The first brush of lips is so chaste, more like the idea of a kiss than anything definite. Geno’s huff of laughter is amazing against Sid’s cheek. He rests his forehead against Sid’s temple, which feels like the most familiar thing to happen since May. Sid grins and leans in. 

“I won’t break, you kiss me for real,” Geno says against his ear and Sid bites his own lip. How does he tell this man he’s wanted for so long that his experience in this field is limited. Kissing has been a means to an end. He’s never kissed a man just to kiss him either. He pulls away and Geno is smiling, his eyes twinkling. 

“How about you kiss me, Mr Expert,” he says, and his eyes snap shut when Geno does just that, leaning in and pressing his lips against Sid’s. Sid’s heart hits his ribs and his hands grip at Geno’s t-shirt and then his shoulders, and when Geno breaks away, Sid moans. 

“Fuck,” he breathes and then scrubs his hand over his face. “Fuck.”

He’s fucked. They’re fucked. Because kissing Geno is more than he imagined. If Geno wants this, Sid won’t say no. 

He can’t. 

When he was 14, he prayed for understanding, and when he was 18, it was for a future, and when he was 25 it had been for a future that didn’t feel like a compromise. Sid’s not sure whether or not this is how prayers are supposed to work, or if this is how miracles appear to mortal eyes, but he feels many times blessed. When Geno insists on going to fetch them two more beers, Sid sends a quick text to his sister to let her know she was right and he just needed to be brave.

The second text takes a lot of that bravery to send. He types in his mom as a contact, and then his dad, and tucks his ankle under his thigh so he can’t bounce his heels on the rug. He’s not sure how to say everything he needs to say, and he can’t tell them about Geno, not specifically, not without asking. But he’s carried a secret for half his life, and he doesn’t want to carry it any further. He’s still staring at the blank message box when Geno comes back. He allows himself to be pulled in to a sideways hug as he tries to piece together a message. 

“Can I tell them it’s you? My parents, I mean,” he asks, not looking up from his phone. Geno is silent, and Sid can hear the steady thump of his head from where his head rests against him. “It’s okay to say no.” 

“Can tell them,” Geno allows eventually. “Is okay.” 

Sid turns his head and presses a kiss to Geno’s shoulder. 

**Not a prank or a hack** , he types. **You can ask Taylor. I’m not coming out, but I’m with someone. He’s one of the best things to happen to my life and I know you want me to be happy. I am so happy. Hopefully you can meet him when you’re next here. S x**

He doesn’t wait for a reply, just locks the screen and closes his eyes, and lets himself live in this moment for a little longer. 

Sidney Crosby is 28 years old, and he’s ready for the future. 


End file.
